


a soft epilogue

by fraust



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10136081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraust/pseuds/fraust
Summary: Fill for the prompt on the kink meme:Graves had been watching over Credence before Grindelwald supplanted him. During the big showdown, Graves manages to escape his prison and, despite being badly wounded, apparates to the scene.Just in time to throw up shields to protect Credence from the aurors' attempts to kill him.No-Angst OptionThe shield works. Credence survives, Grindelwald is defeated, and Credence gets to experience what it's like to have the real Graves fighting in his corner.Angst OptionGraves is weakened by torture and wandless, so while he's able to shield Credence the strain of it kills him. Credence survives, Grindelwald is defeated, but Credence will never truly know the man who gave everything to protect him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I have written in years, so go easy on me because I'm dying for your feedback! We'll have to wait and see which ending I'm going to choose for this, though. Last but not least, the title is taken from the following poem:
> 
> “I think we deserve  
> a soft epilogue, my love.  
> We are good people  
> and we’ve suffered enough.”
> 
> —Seventy Years of Sleep #4. nikka ursula

There were memories Graves clung to in captivity.

His body had been broken and reassembled many times before, and every single time Grindelwald had patched him up just enough that he wouldn’t succumb to his injuries but not enough that he could attempt to escape.

Because if anything could drive him mad, that would be it: the way freedom was always just out of reach. There were times that—and he would be so ashamed to admit it were he to live through the ordeal—he begged Grindelwald for death. That sometime along the way he stopped fantasizing about reclaiming his wand to incapacitate his captor, and started to think about aiming the wand at his own neck and uttering the two magic words: _Avada_ sweet, sweet _Kedavra_.

It would have been easy.

Because it wasn’t about the pain. He was playing a dangerous game with the most dangerous wizard of his era, where he was dealt with the short end of the stick before he even had the chance to begin. Grindelwald was looking for something, or _someone_ , in New York and Graves had a feeling he knew what, or _who_ , it was.

 

(The day she visited him at his office, Tina was struggling to fight back tears. The young Auror had been discredited and humiliated by her peers, so to ask her superior for a favor must have given her second, third, fourth thoughts. Even now, her fists clenching and unclenching on her lap, she was prepared to take on what might possibly be the killing blow to her pride.

_You must think I’m crazy._

He didn’t have the heart to tell her he kind of, sort of, did. Yet he couldn’t help but admire her tenacity, how she continued to stare him down even as a tear rolled, unbidden, down her cheek.

 _Keep an eye on him_ , she had pleaded. _Keep him safe._

In the end, he didn’t have the heart to tell her no.)

 

It was a cold morning in February. The pavement was slick with the rain from last night. All Graves wanted, for the most part, was to burrow his face into the inviting cushion of a scarf if he could, greedy for slumber despite the coffee he had for breakfast.

Walking to work was becoming a habit for him lately; a form of fulfilling his promise to Tina. Like clockwork, he spotted the lone figure that stood still amidst the morning rush, handing out leaflets right across the street. He was dressed like he always did every time Graves saw him, in that paper thin jacket no matter how low the temperature dropped. Something stirred in his gut, an ache in his chest, at the boy who was shivering so violently it was visible from this distance.

“ _Callesco_ ,” he murmured softly with a discreet flourish of his hand, until the tremor wracking the boy’s shoulders ceased.

The rational part of him was aware that that should have been the end of it. That he was overstepping his boundaries—the same boundaries that had nearly cost Tina her job. The right thing to do was to leave before he got noticed. And yet…

Graves remained firmly planted where he stood. The way the boy’s lips parted ever so slightly, and the way his cheeks flushed at the sudden warmth flooding him had his gut churn anew with an emotion that wasn’t quite holy. What he didn’t expect, however, was for the boy to look up, eyes flashing with hunger as they sought out the source of this witchcraft. As if he was certain it couldn’t be anything but. For the first time since Tina asked him to spy on the Second Salemer kid, their eyes found each other. Graves never felt more naked under the scrutiny despite the layers of clothes he had on.

A moment’s hesitation. Finally, a nod in greeting.

He managed to turn away from the boy before his feet could betray him once again, but there was no mistaking the shift on the boy’s face. Somewhat akin to reverence. Out of the corner of his eye, a flicker—

 

Credence Barebone was a Squib.

Of course he suspected more than that. Graves had noticed fresh welts on the boy’s hands trailing after news of unexplainable disruption, had pinpointed the location of each one on a map, and had found the Second Salem church laid at the heart of everything.

The suggestion supplanted itself when at last the final defenses of his mind fell away. Grindelwald had long stopped smiling by then, having cursed him verbally as often as he had magically, the shirt cuffs that were usually immaculate rolled up to his elbows for once.

Credence Barebone wore magic like a beacon but it was not an extension of his arms. Instead, it hung limply by his sides. A stub. That time he recognized Graves’ magic by one look was nothing more than a phantom sensation typically felt by amputees, as an absence of weight where it was supposed to be. A tool he might be, but a weapon he was not.

The dark wizard had taken up to the idea quickly; hook, line, and sinker. It made more sense than the alternative, after all. The boy was well into his 20s, there was no way anyone could have survived with a magical parasite living inside of them for so long, especially when there were no other recorded instances of Obscurials surviving past the age of 10.

The only flaw in his plan was Grindelwald taking his place before he had the chance to share his suspicions with Tina. That, and knowing his composure was slipping further away from his grasp as his captivity wore on. The knowledge was right there, hidden in plain sight, for which he would just as soon die than give up. Some days were more difficult than the others. Those days, where he had cowered like a kicked dog, he swore Grindelwald could have easily peeled off the skin on the nape of his neck and found what he knew written there.

Imagine how angry he would have been. How severe his punishment would have gotten, as the judge, jury, and executioner of Graves’ own personal hell.

So okay, maybe it was _slightly_ about the pain.

Today, he wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic either when Grindelwald decided to drop by. He was holding his wand in one hand and a triangular talisman—the Deathly Hallows, Graves realised with a start—in the other, turning the latter over and over in his grasp.

“Good news, Percival. It seems that my search has come to an end.”

Graves’ lungs constricted painfully in his chest. With or without coaxing the information out of him, Grindelwald was bound to figure it out himself anyway. It was inevitable. Sad thing was, he didn’t know what was worse: running out of time or letting atrocities be committed in his name for as long as he had.

What would Credence think of him now? At best, manipulative. At worst, weak.

Grindelwald must have noticed the grief in the minute droop of his shoulders, because he smirked as he went on, “The bad news is, that means the end of the line for you too.”

“You bastard!” he roared. “Using children for your personal cause. They don’t know any better, damn it.”

For that tiny act of defiance, Grindelwald awarded him with a Cruciatus. Teeth ground against teeth as the torture rendered him unable to think. But this Graves knew so plainly: _he_ would not hear him scream. When Graves bit down on his tongue, the copper in his mouth tasted distinctly of finality.

He barely noticed the effects of the curse wear off, much less registered the binding wards around him dissipate. Whatever damage the Cruciatus lacked was made up for by the ache in his joints that persisted long after Grindelwald’s visits. At least he could breathe a little easier now, like a fog had been lifted off the atmosphere. Graves accepted it as the prequel to something worse, but was grateful for it either way. Blood trickled down his chin and he sighed.

“Don’t worry, at least I’m making it easier for your friends to find your corpse.”

With a wave of the wand, his prison went alight. It was the first glimpse he had ever taken of his surroundings; flames that rose up to a high, vaulted ceiling casting shades against sacks and wooden crates. Perhaps quite fittingly, Grindelwald had put him in a place where things came to be abandoned and forgotten.

He studied Graves’ futile efforts to move away from the fire with a detached sort of amusement.

“Although it has gone on this long without anyone finding out, so maybe not such good friends after all. _Imperio_.”

The curse cast wasn’t a particularly strong one. Awareness taunted at the edges of his sluggish mind, Grindelwald’s laughter a faraway sound that still managed to give him goosebumps. The fire slowly crawling up his arms, scorching fabric and flesh alike, was the first warmth he’d received since he became captive. He welcomed it like an embrace, even when he knew he shouldn’t.

“Stay.”

So he stayed. Were he in his prime condition, he would have broken out of the curse with little resistance. As it was, the more he fought against it, the more intense the heat became while his body burned. It was easy to follow the order when falling into it was such an easy choice to make. All this time keeping a secret closely guarded had left Graves with little energy to fight off anything else. His mind, after all, could only withstand so much.

As if addressing a pet, Grindelwald sneered before he vanished, “Good boy.”

The death offered to him was almost cruel in its mercifulness, because men like Graves were meant to die fighting. He would’ve thought his time was up in the trenches where hexes and gunfire whizzed past his head, always too close but not _close_ enough. He wrote his will again as an Auror who took up a mission he couldn’t come back from, where Picquery couldn’t quite meet his eyes as she sent him off. He was sure it would all be over when the most dangerous wizard in Europe disarmed him.

Silent and docile was not the way to go. Not today.

So he pushed towards the heat, that unforgiving reminder he was dying a little more with each second wasted.

 _One_.

Credence knelt with his palms upturned, the Barebone woman turning his own belt against him to break skin.

 _Two_.

His own face split into a terrible smile as ribs broke inside his chest and he held a hand over his mouth when he coughed but the palm came off red.

 _Three_.

Graves came to with a scream.

The Flame-Freezing Charm washed almost instantly over him, but the damage had been done. There wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t feel raw all over, hands and cheeks and thighs stinging. The smell of burnt skin was enough to make him retch. 

It took another while until he could gather the strength to bring himself upright. The one good leg he had trembled under the weight it wasn’t used to supporting anymore, but otherwise held strong. Swiping a hand down the middle in the general direction Grindelwald always seemed to enter from, Graves hoped against hope that the structure would hold until he found an exit.

“ _Partis_ —” he stumbled on the spell, the smoke in his lungs choking him. “ _Partis Temporus._ ”

 

—

 

Tonight was supposed to be a quiet night at the docks for the stevedores. Once the last liner had set sail, the men found themselves with nothing to do and some time off before they had to head home. They would congregate in an abandoned corner of the warehouse complex to complain about their bosses or their wives, laughing over a cigarette or some liquor should they be so lucky. But instead of the regular cajoling, tonight they sat huddled around a receiver as frantic announcers reported strange disturbances wrecking Lower Manhattan.

“Must be the Germans again,” one theorized conspiratorially, which opened a fresh bout of argument on why it could or could not be the Germans. With the rest of the city enraptured by the chaos happening a few miles away, the last thing they expected was for them to get their own slice of excitement in the piers they called workplace.

They heard the scream before they saw the fumes whirling out of a nearby warehouse. Windows shattered where fire emerged, hungry and vicious, from the frames.

Gathered at the entrance as the building gradually collapsed under intense heat, the men helplessly watched as wooden beams crushed the crates below before they too, were engulfed in flames. One of them finally staggered away to call for help after a brief, stunned silence. No one could have made it out. No one was meant to be there in the first place.

And yet, and yet.

Something stirred from deep within the debris. The gesture was so quick and small one would miss it if they didn’t squint, but it was unmistakable. Objects were being shifted to the side. The fire, as impossible as this sounded, _parted_ down the middle as though to clear a path. Later, once the firefighters arrived, witnesses would describe him as a man having escaped straight from Purgatory.

“Fella, you alright?” The No-Maj stood at a safe distance from him with his hands splayed open in front of him. Whether it was an offer of assistance or a feeble attempt to shield himself from him, Graves couldn’t tell (it was probably both). At his silence, he tried again, “We’re gonna get you to the hospital, you hear me?”

“No, don’t, I’m fine,” he bit out through clenched teeth. It was a lie, of course. Anyone and their grandma could see he was far from _fine_. He swore he would throw himself at the next Healer he came across, but for now, he had some business to attend to.

Before the dock worker could insist otherwise, a horrible screech erupted from the city.

Credence.

Even at this distance, he could make out the Obscurus like a gash in the evening sky. The black void pulsed and expanded before it struck a nearby skyscraper, leaving nothing but a skeleton in its wake. It pained him to see his movements reflected in the Obscurus: a wounded animal trapped between fight or flight.

It was all the distraction he needed. Pushing away from the column he’d been clinging to for support, Graves used what little momentum it provided to spin on his heel and Disapparate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you enough for your lovely feedback! Honestly, I wasn't expecting much but instead got punched in the face with fuel to finish this. You sped up a work that usually took me a couple of months to just a week. That's all you, and I love you.
> 
> Please do mind the tags. Please don't hate me.

The world was drenched in black and white before he even materialized into place. Blindly, desperately, he threw his arms out toward the light.

“ _Protego Maxima!_ ”

The magical backlash sent everyone in the vicinity hurtling backwards. A dozen bursts of spell rained down upon the shield he conjured just in time, spidery cracks running up the surface on places where each spell had collided. Every single one of them winded him like a punch to the esophagus. Nevertheless, his shield held up for the short moment it was required.

It wasn’t until his knees buckled underneath him that Graves noticed the large chunk of flesh missing from his thigh. The exposed muscle was red and hot and all too _wet_ as blood gushed freely out of it.

The sight alone made his head throb.

Graves didn’t remember when he began to collapse, but he remembered tendrils of smoke that wound its way around and under him to cushion his fall. Looking up, it was Credence who met his gaze with bewildered eyes. Credence was alive and well and _here_ when he reached out to cup his cheek. He’d dreamed a million dreams about the boy but none of them held a candle to the reality.

There was a softness that his stepmother could not beat out of him. It was as inherent in him as his magic was, only it could never turn ugly. With Credence, it could never turn ugly.

“Mr. Graves!”

Tina, having shaken off the shock of the blast, was the second person to rush to his side. Upon hearing the name, a deathly silence fell over the witches and wizards gathered at the mouth of the tunnel. Lying crumpled in a heap, the man who reeked of singed flesh, who had more wounds than skin, was their director. Confusion turned into realization, realization into horror.

“Aurors,” Seraphina Picquery started, eyes never leaving the Percival Graves who was regarding her with a smirk that didn’t quite sit right on his lips. “Bring in the impostor.”

Several things happened at once, afterwards. The man that was _not_ Percival Graves began to approach the real Percival Graves, shoving Tina out of the way with a slash of his wand. The Aurors’ attacks were deflected with frightening ease; a few were even incapacitated along the way. The comforting presence around him was gone, the Obscurus now occupying the space between him and Grindelwald. It seemed to stand on its haunches, almost, coiled and ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. A guttural snarl bellowed from deep within the chasm.

Grindelwald held up his wand as if it were a whip, sparks crackling at the tip as Graves curled in on himself for the onslaught of pain that was sure to come. With his cover blown, there was no limit to what torment Grindelwald could inflict upon him in this brief chance he had.

He was tired. He was so, so tired. He hoped whatever it was that Grindelwald had in mind would kill him. He hoped it would be swift.

But nothing ever came.

Graves opened his eyes to Credence—thankfully human—standing with his back to him while he stared down at Grindelwald. Behind him, the wizard was on his knees bound by restraints that wasn’t quite magical, but wasn't quite No-Maj either. It was certainly nothing Grindelwald had ever used to shackle him. Even farther in the back by the tracks stood a friendly face. His proportions were all wrong, the gangly limbs not something Graves had come to expect from a freckle-faced ginger throughout the years, but he seemed familiar nonetheless.

And just like that, it was over.

Tina and Credence were on him again in no time. Credence’s hands flitted over Graves’ scarred face as if to mend, but hesitated at the last inch, because how could he when the monster in him had destroyed everything it touched? Even now, his fingers were dissolving into black again like leeches hungry for blood. Credence moved to withdraw them for fear of ruining the man who had laid down his life to save his.

Before he had the chance to go very far, Mr. Graves captured his hand in his, which stilled the trembling he hadn’t realized was there.

Oh.

He was freezing.

Amidst all the excitement, it was easy to miss the stiff draft that blew in from the caved in ceiling, but now Credence felt the chill seep to the ends of his toes once the adrenaline in his system abated. The same chill, Credence imagined, that Mr. Graves was currently suffering.

Yet it was the older man who brushed lightly against the sleeve of his jacket instead of the other way around, frowning as he did so.

“This won’t do.”

A pleasant warmth spread up his arm down to the rest of him to chase the coldness away. Mr. Graves’ own hand remained cold in spite of it, the discrepancy made all the more evident as he settled more comfortably into his threadbare clothes whereas Mr. Graves…

Well. Mr. Graves was fading.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Credence gripped him at the wrist right where his thumb met the weak throb of his vein. It was selfish but he had to know. He had to know if any of it was real. “When I saw you the other day, and you saw me. I didn’t feel the cold. That was you.”

Mr. Graves, or what was left of him, managed a small nod in response.

The way the two men treated him couldn’t have been more different.

The other Mr. Graves—although he was not Mr. Graves now, angles twisting sharper, sharper, _sharper_ , pale as the moonlight and grinning with all teeth—cared for him through an underlying dread that it could all be taken away any time he wished. He should have trusted his instincts when it told him the whole affair had felt wrong. Instead, he became drawn to the tender touch like a moth to a flame, and paid the price with a slap to the cheek.

It was true that he knew next to nothing about Mr. Graves. Credence still felt undeserving of his compassion, perhaps now more than ever. After all, he had never done anything to be in the older man’s good graces. Through everything that had happened to him, it still mattered that Credence was the slightest bit cold. What did he see in him that made him worth saving? Watching Mr. Graves bleed out in his lap, breaths coming in shallow gasps, Credence feared he might never know the answer.

“Credence, he needs to go,” Tina prodded gently behind him. More people began to crowd around them: wizards in white uniform who rubbed salve and murmured incantations on Mr. Graves’ burns. The skin could be seen regenerating itself even before bandages fully closed around it.

Credence shook his head fervently, his clutch on Mr. Graves tightening. Much to his gratitude, Tina didn’t try to pry him away from his savior. Her tone was patient when she explained, “Mr. Graves has a better chance of surviving the sooner he gets the help that he needs.”

He knew she was right. Even without her explanation, he knew she was right. Only then, and not a moment too soon, did he let the mediwizards levitate the man away.

“Thank you, Mr. Graves. For everything.”

Although they had never been that close before, it brought Graves back across the street one February morning, a chasm of things left unsaid between them. How, as his heart pumped blood across a body that just wanted to shut down, they had run out of time. He wondered then, if this was how it felt for Credence that day. To freeze and to slip away.

“Tina?”

She was beside him in seconds, taking the hand that reached out and grasped blindly for her. Her eyes were glossed over in tears, her smile all but forced when she reassured him, “I’m here, Sir. You’re gonna be alright.”

Neither of them quite believed her, but he grinned at the attempt anyway.

“I kept my promise, didn’t I?”

See, between the Goldstein sisters, Queenie was the one who wore her heart on her sleeve. She might be a Legilimens but an untrained eye could read her feelings between the lines of her face. Tina was never usually that forthcoming, heart hidden behind a pair of firmly pursed lips. Right then and there, however, her face crumpled.

Graves was never meant to sacrifice so much over that one promise. What had nearly got Tina fired damn near killed Graves. It was still killing him, as far as they were both concerned. Guilt weighing heavy in her chest, Tina could simply nod.

“Now promise me you’ll do the same.”

“I will, Sir,” she said without hesitation. He needn’t have asked that of her and she would have done it in a heartbeat. It was the least she could do. After a final reassuring squeeze, Tina let him go.

Above him, the subway tunnel opened up to dark skies and towering buildings, their facade sheltering him from a glittering expanse of tar. Never had the city been more beautiful than it was tonight.

When numbness overtook him, it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. The ache, that nagging weariness deep in his bones, mercifully subsided. Finally, at last.

 

These were Graves’ last three memories:

Across the street, gathered up in his arms, a flicker of a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hang and yell at me @ http://percivalgrvs.tumblr.com/


End file.
